She normally didn't speak up. She was the quiet, reserved type. The type who'd sit at the bar with her friends, and just silently listen to the conversation around her.

It was Julie that got her frustrated, though. Not just frustrated, angry. Julie was talking about the camp she'd sent her son to, one of those camps that promotes a more 'traditional' lifestyle. They advertised it as being 'moral' and 'healthy'.

The young woman had no children of her own, she was far too young for that. She worried that she was wrong for telling somebody else to raise their...

As I sat on the edge of the meadow, I wondered if I'd been wasting my life. Yeah, I know, everybody thinks that. But not a day goes by when I don't leave projects undone, conversations unhad, stories untold.

And even now, there's so much I could do, but instead I stare at the horizon. I imagine butterflies, and wonder what simple lives they must have. No-- not simple, meaningless. Though I suppose the two are one and the same. After all, it's easy to get through a day when there's nothing you want to accomplish.

I lament the wasted...

Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It was a cold evening, and it turns out she didn't quite make the cut to be invited to the party. There's no way she could've gone back home, though. The opinion of her parents was so important to her-- having them know that she was an outcast? It wasn't an option.

So she just stood there. Outside, watching all the more popular people go in. It wouldn't have been so bad if she could sit alone in a quiet corner of the restaurant across the...